Happily Ever Awkward (The H.E.A. Files, #1)(6)

Needless to say, tourism suffered. Never knowing if one would be devoured, robbed, or taunted when setting out on a trip tended to make the notion of travel less appealing. Merchants stopped delivering goods, banks stopped transferring gold, and people stopped buying those silly little fairy dolls from the fairs on neighboring islands.

The situation appeared grim.

Before the Empire collapsed completely from lack of mobility — for even empires need regular exercise — the Emperor dispatched Sir Whitethorne and his Knights of the Oblong Shield upon a crusade to exterminate the threat of the Trolls. Following a series of brutal battles, Sir Whitethorne managed to beat one simple idea into the Trolls’ heads.

Unions.

His thinking was this: since humans had stopped traveling on the bridges, Trolls had been unable to devour, rob, or taunt as they had in the past. No one benefited from such an arrangement.

But there was a way everyone could be happy.

If the Trolls organized and structured their abuses according to Imperial rules, they could charge a “safe passage” toll for humans to use the bridges. This steady income, he argued, would prove far more profitable than freelance devouring, robbing, and taunting had ever been.

Seeing the wisdom of Sir Whitethorne’s words, the Trolls formed the Troll’s Guild. They came out from under their bridges, climbed into their Troll Booths, and began robbing people far more legally.





Astride his weary horse, King Hofnar sat eye to eye with the Troll. Even after all these years, the king was still a testament to testosterone run amok — all hair and muscle and temper. A modest crown periodically peeked through his savage, tangled mane, while a threadbare cape clung for dear life to his hammer-swinging shoulders.

“One hundred gildings?!” he exclaimed in his old-fashioned dialect. “That be robbery! I wilt pay no such toll!”

The Troll shrugged, and the entire booth shrugged with him. “No pay toll, you no go.”

King Hofnar shoved his nose into the Troll’s face. “Knowest thou with whom thou art dealing?!”

“Father, it’s all right…”

Prince Paul spurred his horse beside his father’s. The boy had a slender, athletic build, more given to fencing than the brute bludgeoning his father favored, but athletic or not, an attitude of perpetual defeat bent his shoulders. A handsome young man lurked somewhere behind his lonely, downcast eyes, but that young man was far too self-conscious to show himself.

“Really, we don’t have to go.”

“Silence, Paul! Let me handle this!” King Hofnar barked before turning his attention back to the Troll. “I be Hofnar, king of Lilypine! This be my kingdom! I deserve thy respect! I care not what the Troll’s Guild demands, for I be on official business: taking my son to the Lottery in Theandrea—”

The Troll perked up and stared at Paul. “Princeling of age? Go to Lottery?”

King Hofnar threw his arms out in frustration. “Yes! He be eighteen! ’Tis time for him to Quest and I refuse to—”

With a tap of one sausage-sized finger, the Troll raised the heavy gate. “Why not say so? Lottery free. Agreement with Empire. You pass.”

Paul’s heart sank. Like a melting candle, he slumped even lower in his saddle.

“That be more like it. Come, Paul. To Theandrea!”

King Hofnar charged forward. King Hofnar always charged everywhere. Paul followed at a far less enthusiastic pace, nodding his thanks to the Troll in passing.

The Troll didn’t notice. King Hofnar’s belligerence had stirred up his old urges to devour, rob, and taunt, and the Troll was busy fighting them back down. Grinding his tusks, he slammed the gate behind the prince and sat down in his booth to think about the good old days.





4



THE POXIE POST


Across the archipelago in another part of the Empire of Bridges, a curious island rose from the sea. A vast lump of rock, it heaved its wide, featureless bulk several hundred yards above the waves. But its rocky lumpishness is not what made this island curious. It was the millions of pipes.

Countless pipes wrapped the island in a tangled mesh of tubing until the island resembled nothing more than a giant metallic knot. Some big, some small, the pipes emerged from deep within the rock, their bell-shaped apertures twisting every which way like an unkempt garden of horn flowers.

As if that wasn’t odd enough, blizzards of multicolored lights constantly streaked into and out of each pipe to flurry away in all directions.

The bridge leading to the island ended its journey upon the threshold of an arched entrance. Above this portal, chiseled letters proclaimed:



POXIE POST





Deep inside the island’s stone heart, a horrendously long wooden counter divided a monstrously cavernous chamber where hundreds, if not thousands, of people waited in a line that snaked through a soul-crushing series of corrals, paddocks, turnstiles, and one small but challenging trap-filled labyrinth.

Overhead, like stars swallowed by the earth, thousands of the multicolored lights present outside swarmed throughout the cavern.

Poxies.

Each six inches tall, these tiny winged relatives of Flitterlings darted back and forth with scrolls and letters clutched in their minuscule hands.

Laura the Handmaiden had no idea how long she had been waiting in line before someone finally called her up to an open window at the counter.